SherKhan:Whatever. Just let's not get distracted from weening ourselves off oil again. I'm looking at you Zombie Reagan.

Zombie Reagan sold out to opec before anyone even realized what was going on. Not his fault exactly. The Republican party since the 80's have been very much against moving away from oil since their base is heavily invested. Still is.

That said... gas prices always climb in the spring as they convert the refineries to produce summer grade gas. Happens in the late summer/ early fall again for winter grade gas season.

If they don't refine at the same level, demand could decline along with a reduction in supply.

I learned this stuff in an Econ class many years ago, so it is a little fuzzy, but I think that's the basic concept.

Of course, with their ownership of the refineries, it should be pretty easy to adjust supply to meet demand with only minor fluctuations in price. This, of course, assumes that they have only reasonable profit motives and aren't willing to take advantage of the fact that almost every U.S. consumer of their product is a captive sucker.

Also the Oil Companies aren't monopolies so much as oligopolies. There are very few of them. The problem then arises like it has that when they collude, it is bad for the economy. If they actually competed with one another, it may not be so bad.

Where's the conservative outrage over the free market? Oh yeah, I forgot, they cherry pick their free market support.

Not only is there less demand, there is still more oil supplied at the reduced numbers.

On shore reserves are almost full, at at time that reserve capacity is at an all-time high. In additon, there are dozens of full tankers floating around with even more supply. If this was a free market, prices would fall or at least stay flat. The fact that oil and gas prices are rising is proof of mainpulation of oil futures contracts.

To say nothing of the out-of-whack oil to gas relationship. When oil was $140/barrel, gas was $4.10/gallon, yet when oil is less than half that price ($70/barrel) gas is more than half price ($2.25/gal). Refining capacity been at 60-70% if that, so the "switching over for summer gas" argument holds no water either.

Oil companies in 2008: "Demand is up, so we've regretfully had to raise prices." In 2009: "Demand is down and Obama is President, so we've regretfully had to raise prices" Think of the Environment! T-Shirt

Dancin_In_Anson:If you like the postal service, you'll love nationalized oil.

I know. I hate such efficiency that they can get insane amount of personal and mass mail delivered with nearly 100% efficiency and within the promised time limit six times a week.

You can argue that they could easily go down to four times a week, but if you want to argue government inefficiency the post office really isn't where to look for it. For all the jokes about the post office and it's laziness, they really do an amazing job for the amount of post they need to move every freaking day.

autopsybeverage:demand is down, but they haven't said a thing about supply.

If they don't refine at the same level, demand could decline along with a reduction in supply.

I learned this stuff in an Econ class many years ago, so it is a little fuzzy, but I think that's the basic concept.

Of course, with their ownership of the refineries, it should be pretty easy to adjust supply to meet demand with only minor fluctuations in price. This, of course, assumes that they have only reasonable profit motives and aren't willing to take advantage of the fact that almost every U.S. consumer of their product is a captive sucker.

Saw a different article claiming it was because supply was down, which contradicted an article I read a few weeks back stating oil companies had barges full of the stuff waiting to go but demand wasn't there yet.

Interestingly, these are also the reasons that gas should be taxed, and not subsidized, just like alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs when they're made legal.

Keep dreaming about that last part. Governer Tim Pawlenty just vetoe'd a bill in my state that would've allowed medical marijuana use.

A funny side note, is that when I heard this on the radio, a caller told a story about his mom who was terminally ill and said "if she had access to medical marijuana at the time, which she didn't, because it's illegal, I imagine, that she might, of uh, benefitted, you know, if it was legal and she had access to it, which she didn't because it was illegal, it would've helped her deal with the massive amounts of pain she was in."